Why Are Doctors So Stressed Out?

For everyone in the working world, every person building a career, it’s important to maintain a work-life balance. If that work-life balance is neglected, workplace anger and workplace stress can erupt. It’s important to keep an eye out for symptoms of being overtired, particularly if you are employed at a stressful job.

Symptoms of being overtired happen across careers. In fact, about one million employees miss work every day because of workplace stress. 25% of employees in the United States have felt the need to take a mental health day and a whopping two thirds say that work impacts their stress levels.

Though burnout and symptoms of being overtired can occur to anyone, job burnout and job stress happen disproportionately to physicians and those in the medical profession. Almost half of physicians, studies have shown, have exhibited one or more symptoms of burnout, including symptoms of being overtired and signs of emotional exhaustion. Burnout can be one of the causes of workplace anger as well. Physicians seem predisposed to these symptoms – overall, around 35% of physicians feel burnt out. For physicians under 35, it’s even worse. A staggering 44% of young physicians feel burnt out.

Burn out isn’t just isolated to the workplace. Symptoms of being overtired, symptoms of emotional exhaustion, and overall burnout can affect your life outside the workplace as well. Studies have shown that medical students show rates of depression up to 30% higher than the general population. Burnout can affect the relationships of medical professionals as well. The divorce rate among medical professionals is around 10 to 20% higher than that of those not in the medical profession. It can only be assumed that this is due to the high stress nature of a medical job.

Even within different types of medical professions there are discrepancies as to who is most stressed, most burnt out, showing the greatest symptoms of being overtired. Emergency room doctors get burnt out the most, according to a Medscape Physician Lifestyle Survey published at the beginning of 2017. Almost 60% of emergency room doctors report feelings of being burnt out.